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ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

tennessean.com

411–420 of 517 posts

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same difficulty of anonymity arises with the RV itself, a very ostentatious vehicle that not only can be traced with ease, it can be tracked retroactively on virtually every street, every highway, etc. Regardless, for all we know the person isn't concerned with being caught (and may currently be deceased given that possible human remains have been found).

> it can be tracked retroactively on virtually every street, every highway, etc. Not virtually. Actually. NSA et al can do - will they publicly tip that hand for this?

> Not virtually. Actually.

"virtually" also means "almost", which is what GP was using it for.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#412
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they were blowing it up to stop 5G rays from spontaneously generating viruses, in which case if they didn't really know what they were doing beyond a surface level it wouldn't come as a huge surprise.

It's not any rando that can get access to the levels of explosive necessary to do this in the domestic US, it's actually quite hard.

If you don't need it to be predictable or timely or anything than filling the interior of anything large with propane/natural gas can be enough to create a boom like this. It's essentially just replacing quality with quantity

Also on a vaguely related note getting annual statistics for meth lab explosions is surprisingly hard

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#413
Curious as to the relationship between ATT and Apple's iCloud outages, if any. (I remember ATT was the original carrier for iPhone.)

Fair disclosure: this -is- a paranoid musing. Does my iCloud login ping "Room 641A" in ATT per some understanding between the national security state and apple computer?

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#414
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more surprised that Nashville has city gas. It's not a very cold climate. It almost never even snows there.

A lot of cities in Florida have natural gas including mine. My cook top, hot water, dryer and pool heater run off it. Not used for heating the house as a heat pump is plenty for the mild winter.

What city in Florida? I have only seen this in newer planned communities, never city or county wide in Florida.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#415

Telco worker here. These sort of exchanges in big cities are usually built from solid concrete to minimise damage from these sort of attacks - either from warfare or terrorism. At least, for buildings built during the world wars or cold war. Here's an exchange in Melbourne: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gHeHncO6W4U/ThpRVvEhXHI/AAAAAAAAJ... Built with solid concrete and with thin windows.

Once you see them (which started for me when I read about the secret NSA data tap room some At&T worker discovered), you can't unsee them. They're pretty cool.

I'm actually really surprised that there was ANY damage at all. If you look at the photos of the building post-blast, it barely looks scratched. In fact the news has been focusing on pictures of the burned-out vehicles outside on the street, because the damage to the building is so underwhelming.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facilities don't really keep that large of an inventory of fuel on site. Usually once they start running they have to call for fuel immediately and be regularly refueled until power is restored. They don't have a week of fuel or anything like that. I don't see why natural gas is such a bad backup for utility electric. It doesn't share fate with the electric grid and it's buried. Seems pretty good.

How long will the gas grid keep working without electricity? Sure, the pressure is likely maintained from a reservoir, but many of the control systems likely depend on electricity, and I could imagine some being fail-safe (solenoids holding valves open and shutting if power fails).

They deliberately do not use grid electricity, as they don't like sparking and there is no need for it. It's just simple mechanical pressure regulators, along with gas turbine compressors on long supply lines to boost the pressure.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#417
post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purely my opinion and speculation here, but I'd say the things that stick out to me are the timing and avoidance of random casualties for one. This is a hallmark used by the IRA and the ETA in Spain to inflict damage upon the government without damaging the people, so to speak. The use of an RV also stands out to me, I don't recall many VBIEDs associated with foreign terrorists using that type of vehicle in the US, w…

I don't think the IRA counts as "anti-government" simply because they are anti- that -government. They are also not a "militia" as I understand the term. Why would you follow up "it screams" with "hard to say anything definitive"? Those seem quite contradictory to me.

What would you consider the IRA to be in lieu of anti-government?

I don't think I said the IRA were a militia, I drew a conclusion that this incident, which I speculate as being tied to anti government militia groups in the US, shares similarities with other destructive anti government groups seen in Ireland and Spain. I don't think I said those groups were militia groups specifically, and I don't think the comparison is such a stretch since there are other commenters making the exact same leap to the IRA.

My contradictory wording is likely to be a subconscious defense mechanism of sharing my opinion on the internet. I have not claimed any specific knowledge or authority over this event or even in defense of my own speculation here. In full transparency, the only reason I posted was because people were going all in on the "heist" theory, which I find ridiculous.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Terrorism is unlawfully using violence, especially against civilians, to achieve a political aim. Important to note that there is not one single definition of "terrorism" that everyone agrees on. For some, "terrorism" is a label assigned to your opposing groups, for others it's about violence for political or religious purposes. If it's from another nation-state, it's usually not labeled terrorism, even if it's aga…

There is a general definition that you will find in dictionaries and that is generally accepted. So I think there is a definition that everyone agrees on when there are not pushing an agenda. Then there is the use of the term for rhetorical and political purposes... This is what obviously varies according to the interests of those using the term. Obviously the terrorists are always the 'other guys'. Note that the def…

I agree fully with you, again!

Just adding a bit more context as your previous comment seemed "sure" in that you're proclaiming "X is Y" while reality is not that black-and-white. Again, I agree with this and your previous comment.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting things to consider. 1) I heard something about "fake reports" about gunshots. But maybe the perp shot off some guns just to get the cops to show up? 2) This woman stuck around for 15 minutes or a half hour while this thing was saying "you need to evacuate, this has a bomb"??? 3) This woman recalls a male voice but the news played a female voice. This goes to show how bad our memories are!

Maybe she was right, and there were two voices? The female announcement sounds like it was edited. Badly. This might explain the strange verbiage as well ("All buildings" stands out. That particularly phrase, with its inflection, sounds like it originally came from the end of a sentence too). I've heard other people say it sounds like the same voice used by the city during the summer protests or something along those…

Looks like it may be Microsoft Anna text-to-speech. The poster added reverb and echo and it was very, very close to the youtube security video that captured the warnings. The device that recorded that may have also skipped on its own recording and may not be perfect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B--BNdnuvA

The original video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nygTJeu9fU

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This attack screams anti-government militia with it's technique What makes you think this? Vehicle bombs have been used by Islamic bombers, IRA bombers. Doesn’t seem that unique to me.

They usually do not go out of their way to avoid civilian victims. On the contrary.

As mentioned elsethread, the IRA did in fact often phone in warnings before a bombing.
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